The solid waste division of a large U.S. city provides comprehensive solid waste collection, transfer station, recycling, composting and dead animal collection services for the City. Facing a projected multi-million dollar deficit in the division’s enterprise fund, the City’s Mayor directed the division to find a solution to the twin challenges of rising customer demands and budget deficits by implementing a labor-management partnership that used employee gainsharing as a core strategy.
In 2015, with the ongoing support of the Mayor, the division and its AFSCME labor partners established a formal employee gainsharing program as part of a comprehensive effort to control costs, improve service and reward the employees whose hard work created the savings. Skip Stitt worked with the parties to create the labor-management collaboration model and helped the city successfully implement its new model.